ilifornia 

ional 

ility 


THE 

TRAINING  OF  THE 
HUMAN  PLANT 


THE 

TRAINING  OF  THE 
HUMAN  PLANT 

BY 

LUTHER  BURBANK 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1907 


Copyright,  1906,  1907,  by 
THE  CENTUBY  Co. 


Published  April,  1907 


THE   DE  VINNE   PRESS 


//XT  DiV 

IS 


DEDICATED 

TO  THE 

SIXTEEN  MILLION 

PUBLIC  SCHOOL  CHILDREN  OF  AMERICA 
AND  TO  THE 

UNTOLD  MILLIONS 
UNDER  OTHER  SKIES 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

i  THE  MINGLING  OF  RACES  ....  3 
n  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  NATURE  .  .  .11 
m  DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING  .  .19 

iv  SUNSHINE,  GOOD  AIR  AND  NOURISH- 
ING FOOD 30 

v  DANGERS 45 

vi  MARRIAGE  OF  THE  PHYSIC  ALLY.  UNFIT  58 

ii  HEREDITY — PREDESTINATION — 

TRAINING 67 

vm  GROWTH 76 

EX  ENVIRONMENT    THE   ARCHITECT    OF 

HEREDITY    .     . 81 

x  CHARACTER 87 

xi  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES  .     .  93 


THE  TRAINING  OF  THE 
HUMAN  PLANT 


THE  TRAINING  OF  THE 
HUMAN  PLANT 


THE  MINGLING  OF  RACES 

DURING  the  course  of  many  years  of 
investigation  into  the  plant  life 
of  the  world,  creating  new  forms,  modi- 
fying old  ones,  adapting  others  to  new 
conditions,  and  blending  still  others,  I 
have  constantly  been  impressed  with 
the  similarity  between  the  organization 
and  development  of  plant  and  human 
life.  While  I  have  never  lost  sight  of 
the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test and  all  that  it  implies  as  an  expla- 
8 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

nation  of  the  development  and  progress 
of  plant  life,  I  have  come  to  find  in  the 
crossing  of  species  and  in  selection, 
wisely  directed,  a  great  and  powerful 
instrument  for  the  transformation  of 
the  vegetable  kingdom  along  lines  that 
lead  constantly  upward.  The  crossing 
of  species  is  to  me  paramount.  Upon 
it,  wisely  directed  and  accompanied  by 
a  rigid  selection  of  the  best  and  as  rigid 
an  exclusion  of  the  poorest,  rests  the 
hope  of  all  progress.  The  mere  cross- 
ing of  species,  unaccompanied  by  selec- 
tion, wise  supervision,  intelligent  care, 
and  the  utmost  patience,  is  not  likely  to 
result  in  marked  good,  and  may  result 
in  vast  harm.  Unorganized  effort  is 
often  most  vicious  in  its  tendencies. 

Before  passing  to  the  consideration 
of  the  adaptation  of  the  principles  of 
4 


THE  MINGLING  OF  RACES 

plant  culture  and  improvement  in  a 
more  or  less  modified  form  to  the  hu- 
man being,  let  me  lay  emphasis  on  the 
opportunity  now  presented  in  the 
United  States  for  observing  and,  if  we 
are  wise,  aiding  in  what  I  think  it  fair 
to  say  is  the  grandest  opportunity  ever 
presented  of  developing  the  finest  race 
the  world  has  ever  known  out  of  the 
vast  mingling  of  races  brought  here  by 
immigration. 

By  statistical  abstract  on  immigra- 
tion, prepared  by  the  Bureau  of  Statis- 
tics of  the  Department  of  Commerce 
and  Labor  in  Washington,  I  find,  that, 
in  the  year  1904,  752,864  immigrants 
came  into  the  United  States,  assigned 
to  more  than  fifty  distinct  nationalities. 
It  will  be  worth  while  to  look  carefully 
at  this  list.  It  shows  how  widely  sepa- 
5 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

rated  geographically,  as  well  as  ethno- 
logically,  is  the  material  from  which  we 
are  drawing  in  this  colossal  example  of 
the  crossing  of  species: 

Austria-Hungary,  includ- 
ing Bohemia,  Hungary, 
and  other  Austria  save 

Poland         117,156 

Belgium 3,976 

Denmark    ......  8,525 

France        ......  9,406 

Germany 46,380 

Greece  .     *  -' 11,343 

Italy      . 193,296 

Netherlands 4,916 

Norway 23,808 

Poland  .     .    ".     .     .     .     .  6,715 

Rumania    ...     .     .     .  7,087 

Russia 145,141 

Spain 3,996 

Sweden 27,763 

Switzerland 5,023 

Carried  forward     .     .    614,531 


THE  MINGLING  OF  RACES 

Brought  forward  .      .    614,531 
*  Turkey  in  Europe      .     .        5,669 

England 38,620 

Ireland 36,142 

Scotland         .     .     .     .V     11,092 

Wales 1,730 

Europe  not  specified      .     .  143 

Total  Europe        .     ~  ~  707,927 

British  North  America       .        2,837 

Mexico 1,009 

Central  America       ...  714 

West  Indies  and  Miguelon      10,193 
South  America    ....        1,667 


Total  America  .     .     .  16,420 

China 4,309 

Japan 14,264 

Other  Asia 7,613 

Total  Asia        .     .  .  26,186 

Total  Oceania        .  .  1,555 

Total  Africa     .     .  ;  686 

All  other  countries  90 


Total  Immigrants  .  752,864 

Includes  Servia,  Bulgaria,  and  Montenegro. 

7 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

Study  this  list  from  any  point  of 
view.  Where  has  there  been  found  a 
broader  opportunity  for  the  working 
out  of  these  underlying  principles? 
Some  of  these  immigrants  will  mate 
with  others  of  their  own  class,  notably 
the  Jews,  thus  not  markedly  changing 
the  current ;  many  will  unite  with  others 
of  allied  speech;  still  others  marry  into 
races  wholly  different  from  their  own, 
while  a  far  smaller  number  will  perhaps 
find  union  with  what  we  may  call  native 
stock. 

But  wait  until  two  decades  have 
passed,  until  there  are  children  of  age 
to  wed,  and  then  see,  under  the  changed 
conditions,  how  widespread  will  be  the 
mingling.  So  from  the  first  the  for- 
eign nations  have  been  pouring  into  this 
country  and  taking  their  part  in  this 
vast  blending. 

8 


THE  MINGLING  OF  RACES 

Now,  just  as  the  plant  breeder  al- 
ways notices  sudden  changes  and 
breaks,  as  well  as  many  minor  modifi- 
cations, when  he  joins  two  or  more 
plants  of  diverse  type  from  widely  sep- 
arated quarters  of  the  globe,  — some- 
times merging  an  absolutely  wild  strain 
with  one  that,  long  over-civilized,  has 
largely  lost  virility, — and  just  as  he 
finds  among  the  descendants  a  plant 
which  is  likely  to  be  stronger  and  better 
than  either  ancestor,  so  may  we  notice 
constant  changes  and  breaks  and  modi- 
fications going  on  about  us  in  this  vast 
combination  of  races,  and  so  may  we 
hope  for  a  far  stronger  and  better  race 
if  right  principles  are  followed,  a  mag- 
nificent race,  far  superior  to  any  pre- 
ceding it.  Look  at  the  material  on 
which  to  draw!  Here  is  the  North, 
powerful,  virile,  aggressive,  blended 
9 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

with  the  luxurious,  ease-loving,  more 
impetuous  South.  Again  you  have  the 
merging  of  a  cold  phlegmatic  tempera- 
ment with  one  mercurial  and  volatile. 
Still  again  the  union  of  great  native 
mental  strength,  developed  or  undevel- 
oped, with  bodily  vigor,  but  with  infer- 
ior mind.  See,  too,  what  a  vast  num- 
ber of  environmental  influences  have 
been  at  work  in  social  relations,  in  cli- 
mate, in  physical  surroundings.  Along 
with  this  we  must  observe  the  merging 
of  the  vicious  with  the  good,  the  good 
with  the  good,  the  vicious  with  the 
vicious. 


10 


II 

THE  TEACHINGS  OF  NATURE 

T  ir  TE  are  more  crossed  than  any 
V  V  other  nation  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  here  we  meet  the  same 
results  that  are  always  seen  in  a  much- 
crossed  race  of  plants:  all  the  worst  as 
well  as  all  the  best  qualities  of  each  are 
brought  out  in  their  fullest  intensities. 
Right  here  is  where  selective  environ- 
ment counts.  When  all  the  necessary 
crossing  has  been  done,  then  comes  the 
work  of  elimination,  the  work  of  refin- 
ing, until  we  shall  get  an  ultimate  prod- 
uct that  should  be  the  finest  race  ever 
known.  The  best  characteristics  of  the 
11 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

many  peoples  that  make  up  this  nation 
will  show  in  the  composite:  the  finished 
product  will  be  the  race  of  the  future. 

In  my  work  with  plants  and  flowers  I 
introduce  color  here,  shape  there,  size  or 
perfume,  according  to  the  product  de- 
sired. In  such  processes  the  teachings 
of  nature  are  followed.  Its  great  forces 
only  are  employed.  All  that  has  been 
done  for  plants  and  flowers  by  crossing, 
nature  has  already  accomplished  for  the 
American  people.  By  the  crossings  of 
types,  strength  has  in  one  instance  been 
secured;  in  another,  intellectuality;  in 
still  another,  moral  force.  Nature 
alone  has  done  this.  The  work  of 
man's  head  and  hands  has  not  yet  been 
summoned  to  prescribe  for  the  develop- 
ment of  a  race.  So  far  a  preconceived 
and  mapped-out  crossing  of  bloods 
12 


THE  TEACHINGS  OF  NATURE 

finds  no  place  in  the  making  of  peoples 
and  nations.  But  when  nature  has  al- 
ready done  its  duty,  and  the  crossing 
leaves  a  product  which  in  the  rough  dis- 
plays the  best  human  attributes,  all  that 
is  left  to  be  done  falls  to  selective  en- 
vironment. 

But  when  two  different  plants  have 
been  crossed,  that  is  only  the  beginning. 
It  is  only  one  step,  however  important ; 
the  great  work  lies  beyond— the  care, 
the  nurture,  the  influence  of  surround- 
ings, selection,  the  separation  of  the  best 
from  the  poorest,  all  of  which  are  em- 
braced in  the  words  I  have  used — selec- 
tive environment. 

How,  then,  shall  the  principles  of 
plant  culture  have  any  bearing  upon  the 
development  of  the  descendants  of  this 
mighty  mingling  of  races? 
18 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

All  animal  life  is  sensitive  to  environ- 
ment, but  of  all  living  things  the  child  is 
the  most  sensitive.  Surroundings  act 
upon  it  as  the  outside  world  acts  upon 
the  plate  of  the  camera.  Every  possi- 
ble influence  will  leave  its  impress  upon 
the  child,  and  the  traits  which  it  in- 
herited will  be  overcome  to  a  certain 
extent,  in  many  cases  being  even  more 
apparent  than  heredity.  The  child  is 
like  a  cut  diamond,  its  many  facets  re- 
ceiving sharp,  clear  impressions  not  pos- 
sible to  a  pebble,  with  this  difference, 
however,  that  the  change  wrought  in  the 
child  from  the  influences  without  be- 
comes constitutional  and  ingrained.  A 
child  absorbs  environment.  It  is  the 
most  susceptible  thing  in  the  world  to 
influence,  and  if  that  force  be  applied 
rightly  and  constantly  when  the  child  is 
14 


THE  TEACHINGS  OF  NATURE 

in  its  most  receptive  condition,  the  effect 
will  be  pronounced,  immediate,  and 
permanent. 

Where  shall  we  begin?  Just  where 
we  begin  with  the  plant,  at  the  very  be- 
ginning. It  has  been  said  that  the  way 
to  reform  a  man  is  to  begin  with  his 
grandfather.  But  this  is  only  a  half- 
truth;  begin  with  his  grandfather,  but 
begin  with  the  grandfather  when  he  is  a 
child.  I  find  the  following  quoted 
from  the  great  kindergartner  Froebel: 

"The  task  of  education  is  to  assist  natural 
development  toward  its  destined  end. 

"As  the  beginning  gives  a  bias  to  the  whole 
after  development,  so  the  early  beginnings  of 
education  are  of  most  importance." 

While  recognizing  the  good  that  has 
been  accomplished  in  the  early  kinder- 

15 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

garten  training  of  children,  I  must  en- 
ter a  most  earnest  protest  against 
beginning  education,  as  we  commonly 
use  the  word,  at  the  kindergarten  age. 
No  boy  or  girl  should  see  the  inside  of  a 
school-house  until  at  least  ten  years  old. 
I  am  speaking  now  of  the  boy  or  girl 
who  can  be  reared  in  the  only  place  that 
is  truly  fit  to  bring  up  a  boy  or  a  plant 
— the  country,  the  small  town  or  the 
country,  the  nearer  to  nature  the  better. 
In  the  case  of  children  born  in  the  city 
and  compelled  to  live  there,  the  tempta- 
tions are  so  great,  the  life  so  artificial, 
the  atmosphere  so  like  that  of  the  hot- 
house, that  the  child  must  be  placed  in 
school  earlier  as  a  matter  of  safeguard- 
ing. 

But,  some  one  asks,  How  can  you  ever 
expect  a  boy  to  graduate  from  college 
16 


THE  TEACHINGS  OF  NATURE 

or  university  if  his  education  does  not 
begin  until  he  is  ten  years  of  age?  He 
will  be  far  too  old. 

First  I  answer  that  the  curse  of  mod- 
ern child-life  in  America  is  over-educa- 
tion. For  the  first  ten  years  of  this,  the 
most  sensitive  and  delicate,  the  most  pli- 
able life  in  the  world,  I  would  prepare 
it.  The  properly  prepared  child  will 
make  such  progress  that  the  difference 
in  time  of  graduation  is  not  likely  to  be 
noticeable ;  but,  even  if  it  should  be  a  year 
or  two  later,  what  real  difference  would 
it  make?  Do  we  expect  a  normal  plant 
to  begin  bearing  fruit  a  few  weeks  after 
it  is  born?  It  must  have  time,  ample 
time,  to  be  prepared  for  the  work  before 
it.  Above  all  else,  the  child  must  be  a 
healthy  animal.  I  do  not  work  with 
diseased  plants.  They  do  not  cure 
2  17 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

themselves  of  disease.  They  only  spread 
disease  among  their  fellows  and  die  be- 
fore their  time. 


18 


Ill 

DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING 

I  WISH  to  lay  special  stress  upon  the 
absurdity,  not  to  call  it  by  a  harsher 
term,  of  running  children  through  the 
same  mill  in  a  lot,  with  absolutely  no 
real  reference  to  their  individuality.  No 
two  children  are  alike.  You  cannot 
expect  them  to  develop  alike.  They 
are  different  in  temperament,  in  tastes, 
in  disposition,  in  capabilities,  and  yet 
we  take  them  in  this  precious  early  age, 
when  they  ought  to  be  living  a  life  of 
preparation  near  to  the  heart  of  nature, 
and  we  stuff  them,  cram  them,  and 
overwork  them  until  their  poor  little 

19 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

brains  are  crowded  up  to  and  beyond 
the  danger-line.  The  work  of  breaking 
down  the  nervous  systems  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  United  States  is  now  well 
under  way.  It  is  only  when  some  one 
breaks  absolutely  away  from  all  prece- 
dent and  rule  and  carves  out  a  new  place 
in  the  world  that  any  substantial  prog- 
ress is  ever  made,  and  seldom  is  this 
done  by  one  whose  individuality  has 
been  stifled  in  the  schools.  So  it  is  im- 
perative that  we  consider  individuality 
in  children  in  their  training  precisely  as 
we  do  in  cultivating  plants.  Some  chil- 
dren, for  example,  are  absolutely  unfit 
by  nature  and  temperament  for  carry- 
ing on  certain  studies.  Take  certain 
young  girls,  for  example,  bright  in 
many  ways,  but  unfitted  by  nature  and 
bent,  at  this  early  age  at  least,  for  the 
20 


DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING 

study  of  arithmetic.  Very  early, — be- 
fore the  age  of  ten,  in  fact, — they  are 
packed  into  a  room  along  with  from 
thirty  to  fifty  others  and  compelled  to 
study  a  branch  which,  at  best,  they  should 
not  undertake  until  they  have  reached 
maturer  years.  Can  one  by  any  possible 
cultivation  and  selection  and  crossing 
compel  figs  to  grow  on  thistles  or  apples 
on  a  banana-tree?  I  have  made  many 
varied  and  strange  plant  combinations 
in  the  hope  of  betterment  and  still  am  at 
work  upon  others,  but  one  cannot  hope 
to  do  the  impossible. 

THE  FIRST  TEN  YEARS 

NOT  only  would  I  have  the  child  reared 

for  the  first  ten  years  of  its  life  in  the 

open,  in  close  touch  with  nature,  a  bare- 

21 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

foot  boy  with  all  that  implies  for  physi- 
cal stamina,  but  should  have  him  reared 
in  love.  But  you  say,  How  can  you 
expect  all  children  to  be  reared  in  love? 
By  working  with  vast  patience  upon  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  this  great 
mingling  of  races,  to  teach  such  of  them 
as  do  not  love  their  children  to  love 
them,  to  surround  them  with  all  the  in- 
fluences of  love.  This  will  not  be  uni- 
versally accomplished  to-day  or  to-mor- 
row, and  it  may  need  centuries;  but  if 
we  are  ever  to  advance  and  to  have  this 
higher  race,  now  is  the  time  to  begin  the 
work,  this  very  day.  It  is  the  part  of 
every  human  being  who  comprehends 
the  importance  of  this  to  bend  all  his 
energies  toward  the  same  end.  Love 
must  be  at  the  basis  of  all  our  work  for 
the  race;  not  gush,  not  mere  sentimen- 

22 


DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING 

tality,  but  abiding  love,  that  which  out- 
lasts death.  A  man  who  hates  plants, 
or  is  neglectful  of  them,  or  who  has 
other  interests  beyond  them,  could  no 
more  be  a  successful  plant-cultivator 
than  he  could  turn  back  the  tides  of  the 
ocean  with  his  finger-tips.  The  thing 
is  utterly  impossible.  You  can  never 
bring  up  a  child  to  its  best  estate  with- 
out love. 


BE  HONEST  WITH  THE  CHILD 

THEN,,  again,  in  the  successful  cultiva- 
tion of  plants  there  must  be  absolute 
honesty.  I  mean  this  in  no  fanciful 
way,  but  in  the  most  practical  and  mat- 
ter-of-fact fashion.  You  cannot  at- 
tempt to  deceive  nature  or  thwart  her  or 
be  dishonest  with  her  in  any  particular 

23 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

without  her  knowing  it,  without  the 
consequences  coming  back  upon  your 
own  head.  Be  honest  with  your  child. 
Do  not  give  him  a  colt  for  his  very  own, 
and  then,  when  it  is  a  three-year-old,  sell 
it  and  pocket  the  proceeds.  It  does  not 
provoke  a  tendency  in  children  to  fol- 
low the  Golden  Rule,  and  seldom  en- 
hances their  admiration  and  respect  for 
you.  It  is  not  sound  business  policy  or 
fair  treatment;  it  is  not  honest.  Bear 
in  mind  that  this  child-life  in  these  first 
ten  years  is  the  most  sensitive  thing  in 
the  world;  never  lose  sight  of  that. 
Children  respond  to  ten  thousand  subtle 
influences  which  would  leave  no  more 
impression  upon  a  plant  than  they 
would  upon  the  sphinx.  Vastly  more 
sensitive  is  it  than  the  most  sensitive 
plant.  Think  of  being  dishonest  with  it ! 

24 


DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING 

Here  let  me  say  that  the  wave  of 
public  dishonesty  which  seems  to  be 
sweeping  up  over  this  country  is  chiefly 
due  to  a  lack  of  proper  training — breed- 
ing, if  you  will — in  the  formative  years 
of  life.  Be  dishonest  with  a  child, 
whether  it  is  your  child  or  some  other 
person's  child — dishonest  in  word  or 
look  or  deed,  and  you  have  started  a 
grafter.  Grafting,  or  stealing, — for 
that  is  the  better  word, — will  never  be 
taken  up  by  a  man  whose  formative 
years  have  been  spent  in  an  atmosphere 
of  absolute  honesty.  Nor  can  you  be 
dishonest  with  your  child  in  thought. 
The  child  reads  your  motives  as  no  other 
human  being  reads  them.  He  sees  into 
your  own  heart.  The  child  is  the 
purest,  truest  thing  in  the  world.  It  is 
absolute  truth :  that 's  why  we  love  chil- 
25 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

dren.  They  know  instinctively  whether 
you  are  true  or  dishonest  with  them  in 
thought  as  well  as  in  deed;  you  cannot 
escape  it.  The  child  may  not  always 
show  its  knowledge,  but  its  judgment 
of  you  is  unerring.  Its  life  is  stainless, 
open  to  receive  all  impressions,  just  as 
is  the  life  of  the  plant,  only  far  more  pli- 
ant and  responsive  to  influences,  and 
to  influences  to  which  no  plant  is  capa- 
ble of  being  responsive.  Upon  the  child 
before  the  age  of  ten  we  have  an  unpar- 
alleled opportunity  to  work;  for  no- 
where else  is  there  material  so  plastic. 

TRAITS  IN  PLANTS  AND  BOYS 

TEACH  the  child  self-respect ;  train  it  in 

self-respect,  just  as  you  train  a  plant 

into  better  ways.     No  self-respecting 

26 


DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING 

man  was  ever  a  grafter.  Make  the  boy 
understand  what  money  means,  too, 
what  its  value  and  importance.  Do  not 
deal  it  out  to  him  lavishly,  but  teach 
him  to  account  for  it.  Instil  better 
things  into  him,  just  as  a  plant-breeder 
puts  better  characteristics  into  a  plant. 
Above  all,  bear  in  mind  repetition,  repe- 
tition, the  use  of  an  influence  over  and 
over  again.  Keeping  everlastingly  at 
it,  this  is  what  fixes  traits  in  plants — the 
constant  repetition  of  an  influence  until 
at  last  it  is  irrevocably  fixed  and  will  not 
change.  You  cannot  afford  to  get  dis- 
couraged. You  are  dealing  with  some- 
thing far  more  precious  than  any  plant 
—the  priceless  soul  of  a  child. 


27 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 


KEEP   OUT   FEAR 

AND,  again,  keep  fear  out  that  the  child 
may  grow  up  to  the  end  of  the  first  ten- 
year  period  and  not  learn  what  physical 
fear  is.  Let  him  alone  for  that,  if  he  is 
a  healthy  normal  child;  he  will  find  it 
and  profit  by  it.  But  keep  out  all  fear 
of  the  brutal  things  men  have  taught 
children  about  the  future.  I  believe 
emphatically  in  religion.  God  made 
religion,  and  man  made  theology,  just 
as  God  made  the  country,  and  man 
made  the  town.  I  have  the  largest 
sympathy  for  religion,  and  the  largest 
contempt  I  am  capable  of  for  a  mislead- 
ing theology.  Do  not  feed  children  on 
maudlin  sentimentalism  or  dogmatic 
religion;  give  them  nature.  Let  their 

28 


DIFFERENTIATION  IN  TRAINING 

souls  drink  in  all  that  is  pure  and  sweet. 
Rear  them,  if  possible,  amid  pleasant 
surroundings.  If  they  come  into  the 
world  with  souls  groping  in  darkness, 
let  them  see  and  feel  the  light.  Do  not 
terrify  them  in  early  life  with  the  fear 
of  an  after-world.  Never  was  a  child 
made  more  noble  and  good  by  the  fear 
of  a  hell.  Let  nature  teach  them  the 
lessons  of  good  and  proper  living,  com- 
bined with  an  abundance  of  well-bal- 
anced nourishment.  Those  children 
will  grow  to  be  the  best  men  and 
women.  Put  the  best  in  them  by  con- 
tact with  the  best  outside.  They  will 
absorb  it  as  a  plant  absorbs  the  sunshine 
and  the  dew. 


IV 

SUNSHINE,  GOOD  AIR  AND 
NOURISHING  FOOD 

WE  cannot  carry  a  great  plant- 
breeding  test  to  a  successful 
culmination  at  the  end  of  a  long  period 
of  years  without  three  things,  among 
many  others,  that  are  absolutely  essen- 
tial—sunshine, good  air,  and  nourish- 
ing food. 

SUNSHINE 

TAKE  the  first,  both  in  its  literal  and 

figurative  sense — sunshine.     Surround 

the  children  with  every  possible  cheer. 

so 


SUNSHINE 

I  do  not  mean  to  pamper  them,  to  make 
them  weak;  they  need  the  winds,  just  as 
the  plants  do,  to  strengthen  them  and 
to  make  them  self-reliant.  If  you  want 
your  child  to  grow  up  into  a  sane,  nor- 
mal man,  a  good  citizen,  a  support  of 
the  state  you  must  keep  him  in  the  sun- 
shine. Keep  him  happy.  You  can- 
not do  this  if  you  have  a  sour  face  your- 
self. Smiles  and  laughter  cost  nothing. 
Costly  clothing,  too  fine  to  stand  the 
wear  and  tear  of  a  tramp  in  the  woods 
or  sliding  down  a  haystack  or  a  cellar 
door,  are  a  dead  weight  upon  your  child. 
I  believe  in  good  clothes,  good  strong 
serviceable  clothes  for  young  chil- 
dren— clothes  that  fit  and  look  well;  for 
they  tend  to  mental  strength,  to  self- 
respect.  But  there  are  thousands  of 
parents  who,  not  having  studied  the  tre- 
31 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

mendous  problems  of  environmental 
surroundings,  and  having  no  concep- 
tion of  the  influence  of  these  surround- 
ings, fail  to  recognize  the  fact  that 
either  an  over-dressed  or  a  poorly 
dressed  child  is  handicapped. 

Do  not  be  cross  with  the  child;  you 
cannot  afford  it.  If  you  are  cultivat- 
ing a  plant,  developing  it  into  some- 
thing finer  and  nobler,  you  must  love  it, 
not  hate  it;  be  gentle  with  it,  not  abu- 
sive; be  firm,  never  harsh.  I  give  the 
plants  upon  which  I  am  at  work  in  a 
test,  whether  a  single  one  or  a  hundred 
thousand,  the  best  possible  environ- 
ment. So  should  it  be  with  a  child,  if 
you  want  to  develop  it  in  right  ways. 
Let  the  children  have  music,  let  them 
have  pictures,  let  them  have  laughter, 
let  them  have  a  good  time;  not  an  idle 

82 


SUNSHINE 

time,  but  one  full  of  cheerful  occupa- 
tion. Surround  them  with  all  the  beau- 
tiful things  you  can.  Plants  should  be 
given  sun  and  air  and  the  blue  sky ;  give 
them  to  your  boys  and  girls.  I  do  not 
mean  for  a  day  or  a  month,  but  for  all 
the  years.  We  cannot  treat  a  plant 
tenderly  one  day  and  harshly  the  next; 
they  cannot  stand  it.  Remember  that 
you  are  training  not  only  for  to-day, 
but  for  all  the  future,  for  all  posterity. 

FRESH  AIK 

To  develop  indoors,  under  glass,  a  race 
of  men  and  women  of  the  type  that  I 
believe  is  coming  out  of  all  this  marvel- 
ous mingling  of  races  in  the  United 
States  is  immeasurably  absurd.  There 
must  be  sunlight,  but  even  more  is 

33 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

needed,  fresh,  pure  air.  The  injury 
wrought  to-day  to  the  race  by  keeping 
too  young  children  indoors  at  school  is 
beyond  the  power  of  any  one  to  esti- 
mate. The  air  they  breathe  even  under 
the  best  sanitary  regulations  is  far  too 
impure  for  their  lungs.  Often  it  is  pos- 
itively poisonous — a  slow  poison  which 
never  makes  itself  fully  manifest  until 
the  child  is  a  wreck.  Keep  the  child 
outdoors  and  away  from  books  and 
study.  Much  you  can  teach  him,  much 
he  will  teach  himself  all  gently,  without 
knowing  it,  of  nature  and  nature's  God, 
just  as  the  child  is  taught  to  walk  or  run 
or  play;  but  education  in  the  academic 
sense  shun  as  you  would  the  plague. 
And  the  atmosphere  must  be  pure 
around  it  in  the  other  sense.  It  must 
be  free  from  every  kind  of  indelicacy 

34 


FRESH  AIR 

or  coarseness.  The  most  dangerous 
man  in  the  community  is  the  one  who 
would  pollute  the  stream  of  a  child's 
life.  Whoever  was  responsible  for  the 
saying  that  "boys  will  be  boys"  and  a 
young  man  "must  sow  his  wild  oats" 
was  perhaps  guilty  of  a  crime. 

NOURISHING  FOOD 

IT  is  impossible  to  apply  successfully 
the  principles  of  cultivation  and  selec- 
tion of  plants  to  human  life  if  the  hu- 
man life  does  not,  like  the  plant  life, 
have  proper  nourishment.  First  of  all, 
the  child's  digestion  must  be  made 
sound  by  sufficient,  simple,  well-bal- 
anced food.  But,  you  say,  any  one 
should  know  this.  True,  and  most  peo- 
ple do  realize  it  in  a  certain  sense;  but 

35 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

how  many  realize  that  upon  the  food  the 
child  is  fed  in  these  first  ten  years 
largely  depends  its  moral  future?  I 
once  lived  near  a  class  of  people  who, 
from  religious  belief,  excluded  all  meat, 
eggs,  and  milk  from  the  dietary  of  their 
children.  They  fed  them  vegetables 
and  the  product  of  cereals.  What  re- 
sult followed?  The  children  were  ane- 
mic, unable  to  withstand  disease, 
quickly  succumbed  to  illness.  There 
were  no  signs  of  vigor;  they  were  al- 
ways low  in  vitality.  But  that  was  not 
all.  They  were  frightfully  depraved. 
They  were  not  properly  fed;  their  ra- 
tion was  unbalanced.1  Nature  re- 

1  The  request  has  often  come  to  me  to  state  what  I 
thought  a  "well-balanced"  food  especially  for  chil- 
dren. We  all  need  food  which  supplies  the  elements  of 
growth  and  repair  and  all,  both  old  and  young,  must  also 
have  foods  which  yield  warmth  and  energy.  Nearly  all 
foods  contain  both  these  elements  though  in  greatly 
36 


NOURISHING  FOOD 

belled ;  for  she  had  not  sufficient  mater- 
ial to  perfect  her  higher  development. 

What  we  want  in  developing  a  new 
plant,  making  it  better  in  all  ways  than 
any  of  its  kind  that  have  preceded  it,  is 

varying  proportions  and  usually  far  from  the  right  ones 
for  growth  and  health  unless  a  variety  of  foods  are  eaten 
at  each  meal.  Growing  children  need  a  greater  propor- 
tion of  body-building  foods,  such  as  lean  meats,  fish, 
milk,  some  vegetables  and  fruits.  They  are  often  fed 
too  great  a  proportion  of  sweet  and  starchy  foods.  A 
certain  proportion  of  these  are  absolutely  necessary  but 
we  all  know  the  "starch  babies"  by  their  pale,  fat, 
flabby,  characterless  faces,  lusterless  eyes  and  general 
lack  of  vitality.  Less  starchy  foods  and  more  fresh 
meats  with  eggs,  milk,  some  vegetables  and  fruits  will 
give  more  vitality,  a  better  growth,  greater  intelligence, 
better  health  and  a  better  constitution,  notwithstanding 
the  belief  of  some  of  my  vegetarian  friends  to  the  con- 
trary. 

Children  mostly  fed  on  sweet  and  farinaceous  foods 
are  also  starved  for  the  various  salts  and  mineral  ele- 
ments. These  must  all  be  supplied  especially ,to  children 
else  they  will  certainly  become  victims  of  an  unbal- 
anced, unnatural,  premature  development  and  a  short- 
ening of  life  simply  from  starvation.  Life,  the  builder, 
must  have  the  necessary  materials  or  the  structure  must 
be  imperfect  and  incomplete. 

L.  B. 

37 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

a  splendid  norm,  not  anything  abnor- 
mal. So  we  feed  it  from  the  soil,  and 
it  feeds  from  the  air  by  the  aid  of  sun- 
light and  thus  we  make  it  a  powerful 
aid  to  man.  It  is  dependent  upon  good 
food.  Upon  good  food  for  the  child, 
well-balanced  food,  depends  good  di- 
gestion ;  upon  good  digestion,  with  pure 
air  to  keep  the  blood  pure,  depends  the 
nervous  system.  If  you  have  the  first 
ten  years  of  a  boy's  or  a  girl's  life  in 
which  to  make  them  strong  and  sturdy 
with  normal  nerves,  splendid  digestion, 
and  unimpaired  lungs,  you  have  a 
healthy  animal,  ready  for  the  heavier 
burdens  of  study.  Preserve  beyond  all 
else  as  the  priceless  portion  of  a  child 
the  integrity  of  the  nervous  system. 
Upon  this  depends  their  success  in  life. 
With  the  nervous  system  shattered, 

38 


THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM 

what  is  life  worth?  Suppose  you  begin 
the  education,  so-called,  of  your  child 
at,  say,  three  or  four,  if  he  be  unusually 
bright ,  in  the  kindergarten.  Keep 
adding  slowly  and  systematically,  with 
what  I  think  the  devil  must  enjoy  as  a 
refined  means  of  torment,  to  the  bur- 
den day  by  day.  Keep  on  "educating" 
him  until  he  enters  the  primary  school 
at  five,  and  push  him  to  the  uttermost 
until  he  is  ten.  You  have  now  laid 
broad  and  deep  the  foundation;  out- 
raged nature  may  be  left  to  take  care 
of  the  rest. 

The  integrity  of  your  child's  nervous 
system,  no  matter  what  any  so-called 
educator  may  say,  is  thus  impaired;  he 
can  never  again  be  what  he  would  have 
been  had  you  taken  him  as  the  plant- 
cultivator  takes  a  plant,  and  for  these 
39 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

first  ten  precious  years  of  his  life  had 
fitted  him  for  the  future.  Nothing  else 
is  doing  so  much  to  break  down  the  ner- 
vous systems  of  Americans,  not  even 
the  insane  rushing  of  maturer  years,  as 
this  over-crowding  and  cramming  of 
child-life  before  the  age  of  ten.  And 
the  mad  haste  of  maturer  years  is  the 
legitimate  result  of  the  earlier  strain. 


NEITHER  PLANT  NOR  CHILD  TO  BE 
OVERFED 

NOR  should  the  child,  any  more  than  the 
plant,  be  overfed,  but  more  especially 
should  not  be  given  an  unbalanced  ra- 
tion. What  happens  when  we  overfeed 
a  plant,  especially  an  unbalanced  ration? 
Its  root  system,  its  leaf  system,  its 
trunk,  its  whole  body,  is  impaired.  It 

40 


OVERFEEDING 

becomes  engorged.  Following  this, 
comes  devitalization.  It  is  open  to  at- 
tacks of  disease.  It  will  easily  be  as- 
sailed by  fungous  diseases  and  insect 
pests.  It  rapidly  and  abnormally 
grows  onward  to  its  death.  So  with  a 
child  you  can  easily  over-feed  it  on  an 
unbalanced  ration,  and  the  result  will  be 
as  disastrous  as  in  the  case  of  the  plant. 
The  effect  of  such  an  unbalanced  ration 
as  that  fed  to  the  children  in  the  com- 
munity I  have  referred  to  was  to 
shorten  life;  they  developed  prema- 
turely, and  died  early. 

Again  some  one  says,  But  how  can 
the  very  poor  feed  their  children  plenty 
of  nutritious  food? 

I  answer  that  the  nation  must  pro- 
tect itself.  I  mean  by  this  that  it  is  im- 
perative, in  order  that  the  nation  may 

41 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

rise  to  its  full  powers  and  accomplish  its 
destiny,  that  the  people  who  comprise 
this  nation  must  be  normal  physically. 
It  is  imperative,  in  order  that  the  nation 
be  normal,  that  the  plants  of  the  nation 
from  which  it  derives  its  life  and  with- 
out which  the  nation  dies  must  be  sound. 
All  human  life  is  absolutely  dependent 
upon  plant  life.  If  the  plant  life  be  in 
any  measure  lowered  through  lack  of 
nourishment,  with  the  inevitable  lack  of 
ability  to  produce  the  best  results,  the 
nation  suffers.  To  the  extent  that  any 
portion  of  the  people  are  physically 
mentally  or  morally  unfit,  to  that  ex- 
tent the  nation  is  weakened. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me:  I  am  not 
advocating  paternalism  in  any  sense; 
far  from  it.  But  is  not  the  human  race 
worth  as  much  care  as  the  orchards,  the 

42 


PROPER  NOURISHMENT 

farms,  the  cattle-ranges?  I  would  so 
work  upon  this  great  blending  of  races, 
upon  each  individual  factor  in  it,  that 
each  factor  should  be  called  upon  to  do 
its  very  best,  be  compelled  to  do  its  very 
best,  if  it  was  shirking  responsibility. 
But  in  any  great  nation  there  must  be  a 
large  number  who  cannot  do  their  best, 
if  I  may  use  a  contradictory  term,  who 
do  not  seem  able  to  rise  to  their  oppor- 
tunities and  their  possibilities.  Already 
you  may  see  in  our  larger  cities  efforts 
in  a  small  way  to  help  feed  the  very 
poor.  It  can  be  done  nationally  as  well 
as  municipally,  and  it  can  be  done  so 
that  no  loss  of  self-respect  will  follow, 
no  encouragement  and  fostering  of  pov- 
erty or  laziness. 

Then,  too,  there  are  the  orphans  and 
the  waifs;  these  must  be  taken  into  ac- 

43 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

count.  They  must  have  wise,  sane, 
consistent  state  aid.  I  am  opposed  to 
all  sectarian  aid.  I  would  do  away  with 
all  asylums  of  all  types  for  the  indigent 
under  sectarian  or  private  control.  The 
nation,  or  the  commonwealth,  should 
take  care  of  the  unfortunate.  It  must 
do  this  in  a  broad  and  liberal  and  sane 
manner,  if  we  are  ever  to  accomplish  the 
end  sought,  to  make  this  nation  rise  to 
its  possibilities.  Only  through  the  na- 
tion, or  State,  can  this  work  be  done. 
It  must  be  done  for  self -protection. 


DANGERS 

IN  the  immediate  future,  possibly 
within  your  life  and  mine,  unques- 
tionably within  the  life  of  this  genera- 
tion, what  have  we  most  to  fear  in 
America  from  this  vast  crossing  of 
races?  Not  in  the  vicious  adults  who 
are  now  with  us,  for  they  can  be  con- 
trolled by  law  and  force,  but  in  the  chil- 
dren of  these  adults,  when  they  have 
grown  and  been  trained  to  responsible 
age  in  vice  and  crime,  lies  the  danger. 
We  must  begin  now,  to-day,  the  work 
of  training  these  children  as  they  come. 
Grant  that  it  were  possible  that  every 

45 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

boy  and  girl  born  in  the  United  States 
during  the  next  thirty  years  should  be 
kept  in  an  atmosphere  of  crime  to  the 
age  of  ten.  The  result  would  be  too 
appalling  to  contemplate.  As  they 
came  to  adult  years,  vice  would  be  ram- 
pant, crime  would  go  unpunished,  all 
evil  would  thrive,  the  nation  would  be 
destroyed.  Now,  to  the  extent  that  we 
leave  the  children  of  the  poor  and  these 
other  unfortunates,— waifs  and  found- 
lings,— to  themselves  and  their  evil  sur- 
roundings, to  that  extent  we  breed  peril 
for  ourselves. 

The  only  way  to  obviate  this  is  abso- 
lutely to  cut  loose  from  all  precedent 
and  begin  systematic  State  and  Na- 
tional aid,  not  next  year,  or  a  decade 
from  now,  but  to-day.  Begin  training 
these  outcasts,  begin  the  cultivation  of 
46 


DANGERS 

them,  if  you  will,  much  as  we  cultivate 
the  plants,  in  order  that  their  lives  may 
be  turned  into  right  ways,  in  order  that 
the  integrity  of  the  state  may  be  main- 
tained. Rightly  cultivated,  these  chil- 
dren may  be  made  a  blessing  to  the 
race ;  trained  in  the  wrong  way,  or  neg- 
lected entirely,  they  will  become  a  curse 
to  the  state. 

ENVIRONMENT 

LET  us  bring  the  application  still  nearer 
home. 

There  is  not  a  single  desirable  attri- 
bute which,  lacking  in  a  plant,  may  not 
be  bred  into  it.  Choose  what  improve- 
ment you  wish  in  a  flower,  a  fruit,  or  a 
tree,  and  by  crossing,  selection,  cultiva- 
tion, and  persistence  you  can  fix  this  de- 
47 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

sirable  trait  irrevocably.  Pick  out  any 
trait  you  want  in  your  child,  granted 
that  he  is  a  normal  child, — I  shall  speak 
of  the  abnormal  later, — be  it  honesty, 
fairness,  purity,  lovableness,  industry, 
thrift,  what  not.  By  surrounding  this 
child  with  sunshine  from  the  sky  and 
your  own  heart,  by  giving  the  closest 
communion  with  nature,  by  feeding 
this  child  well-balanced,  nutritious 
food,  by  giving  it  all  that  is  implied  in 
healthful  environmental  influences,  and 
by  doing  all  in  love,  you  can  thus  culti- 
vate in  the  child  and  fix  there  for  all  its 
life  all  of  these  traits.  Naturally  not  al- 
ways to  the  full  in  all  cases  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  work,  for  heredity  will  make 
itself  felt  first,  and,  as  in  the  plant  un- 
der improvement,  there  will  be  certain 
strong  tendencies  to  reversion  to  former 

48 


DANGERS 

ancestral  traits;  but,  in  the  main,  with 
the  normal  child,  you  can  give  him  all 
these  traits  by  patiently,  persistently, 
guiding  him  in  these  early  formative 
years. 

And,  on  the  other  side,  give  him  foul 
air  to  breathe,  keep  him  in  a  dusty  fac- 
tory or  an  unwholesome  school-room  or 
a  crowded  tenement  up  under  the  hot 
roof ;  keep  him  away  from  the  sunshine, 
take  away  from  him  music  and  laughter 
and  happy  faces;  cram  his  little  brains 
with  so-called  knowledge,  all  the  more 
deceptive  and  dangerous  because  made 
so  apparently  adaptable  to  his  young 
mind ;  let  him  have  vicious  associates  in 
his  hours  out  of  school,  and  at  the  age 
of  ten  you  have  fixed  in  him  the  oppo- 
site traits.  He  is  on  his  way  to  the  gal- 
lows. You  have  perhaps  seen  a  prairie 
49 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

fire  sweep  through  the  tall  grass  across 
a  plain.  Nothing  can  stand  before  it, 
it  must  burn  itself  out.  That  is  what 
happens  when  you  let  the  weeds  grow 
up  in  a  child's  life,  and  then  set  fire  to 
them  by  wrong  environment. 

THE  ABNORMAL 

BUT,  some  one  asks,  What  will  you  do 
with  those  who  are  abnormal?  First,  I 
must  repeat  that  the  end  will  not  be 
reached  at  a  bound.  It  will  take  years, 
centuries,  perhaps,  to  erect  on  this  great 
foundation  we  now  have  in  America  the 
structure  which  I  believe  is  to  be  built. 
So  we  must  begin  to-day  in  our  own 
commonwealth,  in  our  own  city  or  town, 
in  our  own  family,  with  ourselves. 
Here  appears  a  child  plainly  not  nor- 

50 


DANGERS 

mal,  what  shall  we  do  with  him?  Shall 
we,  as  some  have  advocated,  even  from 
Spartan  days,  hold  that  the  weaklings 
should  be  destroyed?  No.  In  culti- 
vating plant  life,  while  we  destroy  much 
that  is  unfit,  we  are  constantly  on  the 
lookout  for  what  has  been  called  the  ab- 
normal, that  which  springs  apart  in  new 
lines.  How  many  plants  are  there  in 
the  world  to-day  that  were  not  in  one 
sense  once  abnormalities?  No;  it  is  the 
influence  of  cultivation,  of  selection,  of 
surroundings,  of  environment,  that 
makes  the  change  from  the  abnormal 
to  the  normal.  From  the  children  we 
are  led  to  call  abnormal  may  come,  un- 
der wise  cultivation  and  training,  splen- 
did normal  natures.  A  great  force  is 
sometimes  needed  to  change  the  aspect 
of  minerals  and  metals.  Powerful 
01 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

acids,  great  heat,  electricity,  mechani- 
cal force,  or  some  such  influence,  must 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  Less 
potent  influences  will  work  a  complete 
change  in  plant-life.  Mild  heat,  sun- 
shine, the  atmosphere,  and  greatly  di- 
luted chemicals,  will  all  directly  affect 
the  growth  of  the  plant  and  the  produc- 
tion of  fruits  and  flowers.  And  when 
we  come  to  animal  life,  especially  in 
man,  we  find  that  the  force  or  influence 
necessary  to  affect  a  transformation  is 
extremely  slight.  This  is  why  environ- 
ment plays  such  an  important  part  in 
the  development  of  man. 

In  child-rearing,  environment  is 
equally  essential  with  heredity.  Mind 
you,  I  do  not  say  that  heredity  is  of  no 
consequence.  It  is  the  great  factor, 
and  often  makes  environment  almost 

52 


DANGERS 

powerless.  When  certain  hereditary  ten- 
dencies are  almost  indelibly  ingrained, 
environment  will  have  a  hard  battle  to 
effect  a  change  in  the  child;  but  that  a 
change  can  be  wrought  by  the  sur- 
roundings we  all  know.  The  particu- 
lar subject  may  at  first  be  stubborn 
against  these  influences,  but  repeated 
application  of  the  same  modifying 
forces  in  succeeding  generations  will  at 
last  accomplish  the  desired  object  in  the 
child  as  it  does  in  the  plant. 

No  one  shall  say  what  great  results 
for  the  good  of  the  race  may  not  be  at- 
tained in  the  cultivation  of  abnormal 
children,  transforming  them  into  nor- 
mal ones. 


58 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 


THE  PHYSICALLY  WEAK 

So  also  of  the  physically  weak.  I  have 
a  plant  in  which  I  see  wonderful  possi- 
bilities, but  it  is  weak.  Simply  because 
it  is  weak  do  I  become  discouraged  and 
say  it  can  never  be  made  strong,  that  it 
would  better  be  destroyed?  Not  at  all; 
it  may  possess  other  qualities  of  superla- 
tive value.  Even  if  it  never  becomes 
as  robust  as  its  fellows,  it  may  have  a 
tremendous  influence.  Because  a  child 
is  a  weakling,  should  it  be  put  out  of  the 
way?  Such  a  principle  is  monstrous. 
Look  over  the  long  line  of  the  great 
men  of  the  world,  those  who  have 
changed  history  and  made  history, 
those  who  have  helped  the  race 
upward, — poets,  painters,  statesmen, 

54 


DANGERS 

scientists,  leaders  of  thought  in  every 
department,— and  you  will  find  that 
many  of  them  have  been  phys- 
ically weak.  No,  the  theory  of  the  an- 
cients that  the  good  of  the  state  de- 
manded the  elimination  of  the  physi- 
cally weak  was,  perhaps,  unwise.  What 
we  should  do  is  to  strengthen  the  weak, 
cultivate  them  as  we  cultivate  plants, 
build  them  up,  make  them  the  very  best 
they  are  capable  of  becoming. 

THE  MENTALLY  DEFECTIVE 

BUT  with  those  who  are  mentally  defec- 
tive— ah,  here  is  the  hardest  question  of 
all! — what  shall  be  done  with  them? 
Apparently  fatally  deficient,  can  they 
ever  be  other  than  a  burden?  In  the 
case  of  plants  in  which  all  tendencies  are 

55 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

absolutely  vicious  there  is  only  one 
course — they  must  be  destroyed.  In 
the  case  of  human  beings  in  whom  the 
light  of  reason  does  not  burn,  those 
who,  apparently,  can  never  be  other 
than  a  burden,  shall  they  be  eliminated 
from  the  race?  Go  to  the  mother  of  an 
imbecile  child  and  get  your  answer. 
No;  here  the  analogy  must  cease.  I 
shall  not  say  that  in  the  ideal  state  gen- 
eral citizenship  would  not  gain  by  the 
absence  of  such  classes,  but  where  is  the 
man  who  would  deal  with  such  Spartan 
rigor  with  the  race?  Besides  all  this, 
in  the  light  of  the  great  progress  now 
being  made  in  medical  and  surgical 
skill,  who  shall  say  what  now  appar- 
ently impossible  cures  may  not  be  ef- 
fected? 

But  it  is  as  clear  as  sunlight  that  here, 

56 


DANGERS 

as  in  the  case  of  plants,  constant  culti- 
vation and  selection  will  do  away  with 
all  this,  so  that  in  the  grander  race  of 
the  future  these  defectives  will  have  be- 
come permanently  eliminated  from  the 
race  heredity.  For  these  helpless  un- 
fortunates, as  with  those  who  are  merely 
unfortunate  from  environment,  I 
should  enlist  the  best  and  broadest  state 
aid. 


57 


VI 

MARRIAGE  OF  THE  PHYSICALLY  UNFIT 

IT  would,  if  possible,  be  best  abso- 
lutely to  prohibit  in  every  State  in 
the  Union  the  marriage  of  the  physi- 
cally, mentally  and  morally  unfit.  If  we 
take  a  plant  which  we  recognize  as  poi- 
sonous and  cross  it  with  another  which  is 
not  poisonous  and  thus  make  the  whole- 
some plant  evil,  so  that  it  menaces  all 
who  come  in  contact  with  it,  this  is  crim- 
inal enough.  But  suppose  we  blend  to- 
gether two  poisonous  plants  and  make 
a  third  even  more  virulent,  a  vegetable 
degenerate,  and  set  their  evil  descend- 
ants adrift  to  multiply  over  the  earth, 

58 


MARRIAGE  OF  PHYSICALLY  UNFIT 

are  we  not  distinct  foes  to  the  race? 
What,  then,  shall  we  say  of  two  people 
of  absolutely  defined  physical  impair- 
ment who  are  allowed  to  marry  and 
rear  children?  It  is  a  crime  against  the 
state  and  every  individual  in  the  state. 
And  if  these  physically  degenerate  are 
also  morally  degenerate,  the  crime  be- 
comes all  the  more  appalling. 

COUSINS 

WHILE  it  seems  clear  now  in  the  light 
of  recent  studies  that  the  children  of 
first  cousins  who  have  been  reared  under 
different  environmental  influences  and 
who  have  remained  separate  from  birth 
until  married  are  not  likely  to  be  im- 
paired either  mentally,  morally  or  phys- 
ically, though  the  second  generation 
59 


will  be  more  than  likely  to  show  retro- 
gression, yet  first  cousin  marriages 
when  they  have  been  reared  under  simi- 
lar environment  should,  no  doubt,  be 
prohibited.  The  history  of  some  of  the 
royal  families  of  Europe,  where  inter- 
marrying, with  its  fatal  results,  has  so 
long  prevailed,  should  be  sufficient 
though  in  these  cases  other  baneful  in- 
fluences have  no  doubt  added  their 
shadow  to  the  picture. 

TEN  GENERATIONS 

BUT  let  us  take  a  still  closer  view  of  the 
subject.  Suppose  it  were  possible  to 
select  say,  a  dozen  normal  families,  the 
result  of  some  one  of  the  many  blend- 
ings  of  these  native  and  foreign  stocks, 
and  let  them  live  by  themselves,  so  far 
60 


TEN  GENERATIONS 

as  the  application  of  the  principles  I 
have  been  speaking  of  are  concerned, 
though  not  by  any  means  removed  from 
the  general  influence?  of  the  state.  Let 
them  have,  if  you  will,  ideal  conditions 
for  working  out  these  principles,  and 
let  them  be  solemnly  bound  to  the  de- 
velopment of  these  principles — what 
can  be  done? 

In  plant  cultivation,  under  normal 
conditions,  from  six  to  ten  generations 
are  generally  sufficient  to  fix  the  de- 
scendants of  the  parent  plants  in  their 
new  ways.  Sufficient  time  in  all  cases 
must  elapse  so  that  the  descendants  will 
not  revert  to  some  former  condition  of 
inefficiency.  When  once  stability  is  se- 
cured, usually,  as  indicated,  in  from  six 
to  ten  generations,  the  plant  may  then 
be  counted  upon  to  go  forward  in  its 
61 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

new  life  as  though  the  old  lives  of  its 
ancestors  had  never  been.  This,  among 
plants,  will  be  by  the  end  of  from  five 
to  ten  generations,  varying  according 
to  the  plant's  character — its  pliability 
or  stubbornness.  I  do  not  say  that  lack 
of  care  and  nourishment  thereafter  will 
not  have  a  demoralizing  influence,  for 
no  power  can  prevent  a  plant  from  be- 
coming again  part  wild  if  left  to  itself 
through  many  generations,  but  even 
here  it  will  probably  become  wild  along 
the  lines  of  its  new  life,  not  by  any 
means  necessarily  along  ancestral  lines. 
If,  then,  we  could  have  these  twelve 
families  under  ideal  conditions  where 
these  principles  could  be  carried  out  un- 
swervingly, we  could  accomplish  more 
for  the  race  in  ten  generations  than  can 
now  be  accomplished  in  a  hundred  thou- 


TEN  GENERATIONS 

sand  years.  Ten  generations  of  human 
life  should  be  ample  to  fix  any  desired 
attribute.  This  is  absolutely  clear. 
There  is  neither  theory  nor  speculation. 
Given  the  fact  that  the  most  sensitive 
material  in  all  the  world  upon  which  to 
work  is  the  nature  of  a  little  child,  given 
ideal  conditions  under  which  to  work 
upon  this  nature,  and  the  end  desired 
will  as  certainly  come  as  it  comes  in  the 
cultivation  of  the  plant.  There  will  be 
this  difference,  however,  that  it  will  be 
immeasurably  easier  to  produce  and  fix 
any  desired  traits  in  the  child  than  in 
the  plant,  though,  of  course,  a  plant 
may  be  said  to  be  a  harp  with  a  few 
strings  as  compared  with  a  child. 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT 

BUT  some  one  says,  You  fail  to  take 
into  account  the  personal  element,  the 
sovereign  will  of  the  human  being,  its 
power  of  determining  for  itself. 

By  no  means;  I  give  full  weight  to 
this.  But  the  most  stubborn  and  wilful 
nature  in  the  world  is  not  that  of  a 
child.  I  have  dealt  with  millions  of 
plants,  have  worked  with  them  for 
many  years,  have  studied  them  with  the 
deepest  interest  from  all  sides  of  their 
lives.  The  most  stubborn  living  thing 
in  this  world,  the  most  difficult  to 
swerve,  is  a  plant  once  fixed  in  certain 
habits — habits  which  have  been  intensi- 
fied and  have  been  growing  stronger 
and  stronger  upon  it  by  repetition 

64 


PERSONAL  ELEMENT 

through  thousands  and  thousands  of 
years.  Remember  that  this  plant  has 
preserved  its  individuality  all  through 
the  ages ;  perhaps  it  is  one  which  can  be 
traced  backward  through  eons  of  time 
in  the  very  rocks  themselves,  never  hav- 
ing varied  to  any  great  extent  in  all 
these  vast  periods.  Do  you  suppose, 
after  all  these  ages  of  repetition,  the 
plant  does  not  become  possessed  of  a 
will,  if  you  so  choose  to  call  it,  of  unpar- 
alleled tenacity?  Indeed,  there  are 
plants,  like  certain  of  the  palms,  so  per- 
sistent that  no  human  power  has  yet 
been  able  to  change  them.  The  human 
will  is  a  weak  thing  beside  the  will  of  a 
plant.  But  see  how  this  whole  plant's 
lifelong  stubbornness  is  broken  simply 
by  blending  a  new  life  with  it,  making, 
by  crossing,  a  complete  and  powerful 

5  65 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

change  in  its  life.  Then  when  the  break 
comes,  fix  it  by  these  generations  of  pa- 
tient supervision  and  selection,  and  the 
new  plant  sets  out  upon  its  new  way 
never  again  to  return  to  the  old,  its 
tenacious  will  broken  and  changed  at 
last. 

When  it  comes  to  so  sensitive  and  pli- 
able a  thing  as  the  nature  of  a  child,  the 
problem  becomes  vastly  easier. 


66 


VII 

HEREDITY— PREDESTINATION- 
TRAINING 

THERE  is  no  such  thing  in  the  world, 
there  never  has  been  such  a  thing, 
as  a  predestined  child— predestined  for 
heaven  or  hell.  Men  have  taught  such 
things  in  the  past,  there  may  be  now 
those  who  account  for  certain  manifes- 
tations on  this  belief,  just  as  there  may 
be  those  who  in  the  presence  of  some 
hopelessly  vicious  man  hold  to  the  view, 
whether  they  express  it  or  not,  of  total 
depravity.  But  even  total  depravity 
never  existed  in  a  human  being,  never 
can  exist  in  one  any  more  than  it  can  ex- 
67 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

ist  in  a  plant.  Heredity  means  much, 
but  what  is  heredity?  Not  some  hide- 
ous ancestral  specter  forever  crossing 
the  path  of  a  human  being.  Heredity 
is  simply  the  sum  of  all  the  effects  of  all 
the  environments  of  all  past  genera- 
tions on  the  responsive,  ever-moving 
life  forces.  There  is  no  doubt  that  if  a 
child  with  a  vicious  temper  be  placed  in 
an  environment  of  peace  and  quiet  the 
temper  will  change.  Put  a  boy  born  of 
gentle  white  parents  among  Indians 
and  he  will  grow  up  like  an  Indian.  Let 
the  child  born  of  criminal  parents  have 
a  setting  of  morality,  integrity,  and 
love,  and  the  chances  are  that  he  will 
not  grow  into  a  criminal,  but  into  an 
upright  man.  I  do  not  say,  of  course, 
that  heredity  will  not  sometimes  assert 
itself.  When  the  criminal  instinct 
68 


HEREDITY 

crops  out  in  a  person,  it  might  appear 
as  if  environment  were  leveled  to  the 
ground;  but  in  succeeding  generations 
the  effect  of  constant  higher  environ- 
ment will  not  fail  to  become  fixed. 

Apply  to  the  descendants  of  these 
twelve  families  throughout  three  hun- 
dred years  the  principles  I  have  set 
forth,  and  the  reformation  and  regener- 
ation of  the  world,  their  particular 
world,  will  have  been  effected.  Apply 
these  principles  now,  to-day,  not  wait- 
ing for  the  end  of  these  three  hundred 
years,  not  waiting,  indeed,  for  any  mil- 
lennium to  come,  but  make  the  millen- 
nium, and  see  what  splendid  results  will 
follow.  Not  the  ample  results  of  the 
larger  period,  to  be  sure,  for  with  the 
human  life,  as  with  the  plant  life,  it  re- 
quires these  several  generations  to  fix 
69 


TRAINING  QF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

new  characteristics  or  to  intensify  old 
ones.  But  narrow  it  still  more,  apply 
these  principles  to  a  single  family, — in- 
deed, still  closer,  to  a  single  child,  your 
child  it  may  be,— and  see  what  the  re- 
sults will  be. 

But  remember  that  just  as  there 
must  be  in  plant  cultivation  great  pa- 
tience, unswerving  devotion  to  the 
truth,  the  highest  motive,  absolute  hon- 
esty, unchanging  love,  so  must  it  be  in 
the  cultivation  of  a  child.  If  it  be 
worth  while  to  spend  ten  years  upon  the 
ennoblement  of  a  plant,  be  it  fruit,  tree, 
or  flower,  is  it  not  worth  while  to  spend 
ten  years  upon  a  child  in  this  precious 
formative  period,  fitting  it  for  the  place 
it  is  to  occupy  in  the  world?  Is  not  a 
child's  life  vastly  more  precious  than  the 
life  of  a  plant?  Under  the  old  order  of 
70 


TRAINING 

things  plants  kept  on  in  their  course 
largely  uninfluenced  in  any  new  direc- 
tion. The  plant-breeder  changes  their 
lives  to  make  them  better  than  they  ever 
were  before.  Here  in  America,  in  the 
midst  of  this  vast  crossing  of  species,  we 
have  an  unparalleled  opportunity  to 
work  upon  these  sensitive  human  na- 
tures. We  may  surround  them  with 
right  influences.  We  may  steady  them 
in  right  ways  of  living.  We  may  bring 
to  bear  upon  them,  just  as  we  do  upon 
plants,  the  influence  of  light  and  air,  of 
sunshine  and  abundant,  well-balanced 
food.  We  may  give  them  music  and 
laughter.  We  may  teach  them  as  we 
teach  the  plants  to  be  sturdy  and  self- 
reliant.  We  may  be  honest  with  them, 
as  we  are  obliged  to  be  honest  with 
plants.  We  may  break  up  this  cruel 
71 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

educational  articulation  which  connects 
the  child  in  the  kindergarten  with  the 
graduate  of  the  university  while  there 
goes  on  from  year  to  year  an  unin- 
terrupted system  of  cramming,  an 
uninterrupted  mental  strain  upon  the 
child,  until  the  integrity  of  its  nervous 
system  may  be  destroyed  and  its  life 
impaired. 

I  may  only  refer  to  that  mysterious 
prenatal  period,  and  say  that  even  here 
we  should  begin  our  work,  throwing 
around  the  mothers  of  the  race  every 
possible  loving,  helpful,  and  ennobling 
influence ;  for  in  the  doubly  sacred  time 
before  the  birth  of  a  child  lies,  far  more 
than  we  can  possibly  know,  the  hope  of 
the  future  of  this  ideal  race  which  is 
coming  upon  this  earth  if  we  and  our 
descendants  will  it  so  to  be. 
72 


TRAINING 

Man  has  by  no  means  reached  the  ul- 
timate. The  fittest  has  not  yet  arrived. 
In  the  process  of  elimination  the  weaker 
must  fail,  but  the  battle  has  changed  its 
base  from  brute  force  to  mental  integ- 
rity. We  now  have  what  are  popularly 
known  as  five  senses,  but  there  are  men 
of  strong  minds  whose  reasoning  has 
rarely  been  at  fault  and  who  are  coldly 
scientific  in  their  methods,  who  attest  to 
the  possibility  of  yet  developing  a  sixth 
sense.  Who  is  he  who  can  say  man  will 
not  develop  new  senses  as  evolution  ad- 
vances? Psychology  is  now  studied  in 
most  of  the  higher  institutions  of  learn- 
ing throughout  the  country,  and  that 
study  will  lead  to  a  greater  knowledge 
of  these  subjects.  The  man  of  the  fu- 
ture ages  will  prove  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent order  of  being  from  that  of  the  pres- 
73 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 
ent.     He  may  look  upon  us  as  we  to- 
day look  upon  our  ancestors. 

Statistics  show  many  things  to  make 
us  pause,  but,  after  all,  the  only  right 
and  proper  point  of  view  is  that  of  the 
optimist.  The  time  will  come  when  in- 
sanity will  be  reduced,  suicides  and 
murders  will  be  greatly  diminished,  and 
man  will  become  a  being  of  fewer  men- 
tal troubles  and  bodily  ills.  Whenever 
you  have  a  nation  in  which  there  is  no 
variation,  there  is  comparatively  little 
insanity  or  crime,  or  exalted  morality 
or  genius.  Here  in  America,  where  the 
variation  is  greatest,  statistics  show  a 
greater  percentage  of  all  these  varia- 
tions. 

As  time  goes  on  in  its  endless  and 
ceaseless     course,    environment    must 
crystallize   the   American   nation;    its 
74 


TRAINING 

varying  elements  will  become  unified, 
and  the  weeding-out  process  will,  by  the 
means  indicated  in  this  paper,  by  selec- 
tion and  environmental  influences,  leave 
the  finest  human  product  ever  known. 
The  transcendent  qualities  which  are 
placed  in  plants  will  have  their  analo- 
gies in  the  noble  composite,  the  Ameri- 
can of  the  future. 


VIII 

GROWTH 

GROWTH  is  a  vital  process— an  evo- 
lution— a  marshaling  of  vagrant 
unorganized  forces  into  definite  forms 
of  beauty,  harmony  and  utility.  Growth 
in  some  form  is  about  all  that  we  ever 
take  any  interest  in;  it  expresses  about 
everything  of  value  to  us.  Growth  in 
its  more  simple  or  most  marvelously 
complicated  forms  is  the  architect  of 
beauty,  the  inspiration  of  poetry,  the 
builder  and  sustainer  of  life,  for  life  it- 
self is  only  growth,  an  ever-changing 
movement  toward  some  object  or  ideal. 
Wherever  life  is  found,  there,  also,  is 
76 


GROWTH 

growth  in  some  direction.     The  end  of 
growth  is  the  beginning  of  decay. 

Growth  within,  is  health,  content  and 
happiness,  and  growing  things  without 
stimulate  and  enhance  growth  within. 
Whose  pulses  are  not  hastened,  and  who 
is  not  filled  with  joy  when  in  Earth's 
long  circling  swing  around  our  great 
dynamo  the  Sun,  the  point  is  reached 
where  chilling,  blistering  frosts  are  ex- 
changed for  warmth  and  growth !  When 
the  flowers  and  grasses  on  the  warm 
hillsides  gleefully  hasten  up  through 
the  soft  wet  soil,  or  later  when  ferns, 
meadow  rues  and  trilliums  thrilled  with 
awakened  life,  crack  through  and  push  up 
the  loose  mellow  earth  in  small  mounds 
— little  volcanoes  of  growth;  all  these 
variously  organized  life  forces  are  ex- 
pressing themselves  each  in  its  own 
77 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

specific  way.  Each  so-called  species, 
each  individual  has  something  within 
itself  which  we  call  heredity — a  general 
tendency  to  reproduce  itself  in  form 
and  habits  somewhat  definitely  after  its 
own  kind. 


NEW  SPECIES 

MOST  of  the  ancient  and  even  a  large 
part  of  modern  students  of  plant  and 
animal  life  have  held  that  their  so-called 
true  species  never  varied  to  any  great 
extent,  at  least  never  varied  from  the 
standard  type  sufficiently  to  form  what 
could  scientifically  be  called  a  new  spe- 
cies. Under  this  view  the  word  hered- 
ity has  had  a  very  indefinite  meaning 
when  used  in  conjunction  with  environ- 
ment; and  a  never-ending  uncertainty 
78 


GROWTH 

has  always  been  apparent  as  to  their  rel- 
ative power  in  molding  individual  life. 

HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT 

WHEN  the  great  rivers  of  life,  which  we 
now  see,  commenced  on  this  planet  they 
did  not  at  once  leap  into  existence  with 
all  their  present  complicated  combina- 
tions of  forces  and  motions;  all  were 
very  insignificant;  their  slender  courses, 
though  simple,  were  devious  and  uncer- 
tain, at  first  lacking  all  the  wonderfully 
varied  but  slowly  acquired  adaptations 
to  environment  that  have  come  with  the 
ages;  all  had  many  obstacles  to  over- 
come, many  things  to  learn; — and  for 
long  ages  were  able  to  respond  only  to 
the  more  powerful  or  long-continued 
action  of  external  forces.  Many  of 
79 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

these  frail  life  streams  in  the  long 
race  down  the  ages  were  snuffed  out  by 
unfavorable  surroundings,  unfavorable 
heredity,  or  the  combination  and  inter- 
action of  both;  others  more  successful 
have  lived  to  be  our  contemporaries  and 
to-day  the  process  is  still  unchanged. 

If  a  race  has  not  acquired  and  stored 
among  its  hereditary  tendencies  suffi- 
cient perseverance  and  adaptability  to 
meet  all  the  changes  to  which  it  must 
always  be  subjected  by  its  ever-chang- 
ing environment,  it  will  be  left  behind 
and  finally  destroyed,  outstripped  by 
races  better  equipped  for  the  fray. 


80 


IX 

ENVIRONMENT  THE  ARCHITECT  OF 
HEREDITY 

HEREDITY  is  not  the  dark  specter 
which  some  people  have  thought 
—merciless  and  unchangeable,  the  em- 
bodiment of  Fate  itself.  This  dark, 
pessimistic  belief  which  tinges  even  the 
literature  of  to-day  comes,  no  doubt, 
from  the  general  lack  of  knowledge  of 
the  laws  governing  the  interaction  of 
these  two  ever-present  forces  of  hered- 
ity and  environment  wherever  there  is 
life. 

My  own  studies  have  led  me  to  be  as- 
sured that  heredity  is  only  the  sum  of 

6  81 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

all  past  environment,  in  other  words  en- 
vironment is  the  architect  of  heredity; 
and  I  am  assured  of  another  fact:  ac- 
quired characters  are  transmitted  and — 
even  further — that  all  characters  which 
are  transmitted  have  been  acquired, 
not  necessarily  at  once  in  a  dy- 
namic or  visible  form,  but  as  an  increas- 
ing latent  force  ready  to  appear  as  a 
tangible  character  when  by  long-contin- 
ued natural  or  artificial  repetition  any 
specific  tendency  has  become  inherent, 
inbred,  or  "fixed,"  as  we  call  it. 

We  may  compare  this  sum  of  the  life 
forces,  which  we  call  heredity,  to  the 
character  of  a  sensitive  plate  in  the  cam- 
era. Outside  pictures  impress  them- 
selves more  or  less  distinctly  on  the  sen- 
sitive plate  according  to  their  position, 
intensity,  and  the  number  of  times  the 

82 


ENVIRONMENT 

plate  has  been  exposed  to  the  objects 
(environments)  in  the  same  relative  po- 
sition; all  impressions  are  recorded. 
Old  ones  fade  from  immediate  con- 
sciousness, but  each  has  written  a  per- 
manent record.  Stored  within  heredity 
are  all  joys,  sorrows,  loves,  hates,  music, 
art,  temples,  palaces,  pyramids,  hovels, 
kings,  queens,  paupers,  bards,  proph- 
ets and  philosophers,  oceans,  caves, 
volcanoes,  floods,  earthquakes,  wars,  tri- 
umphs, defeats,  reverence,  courage,  wis- 
dom, virtue,  love  and  beauty,  time, 
space,  and  all  the  mysteries  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  appropriate  environments 
will  bring  out  and  intensify  all  these 
general  human  hereditary  experiences 
and  quicken  them  again  into  life  and 
action,  thus  modifying  for  good  or  evil 
character — heredity — destiny. 
83 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 


REPETITION 

REPETITION  is  the  best  means  of  im- 
pressing any  one  point  on  the  human 
understanding;  it  is  also  the  means 
which  we  employ  to  train  animals  to  do 
as  we  wish,  and  by  just  the  same  pro- 
cess we  impress  plant  life.  By  repeti- 
tion we  fix  any  tendency,  and  the  more 
times  any  unusual  environment  is  re- 
peated the  more  indelibly  will  the  re- 
sultant tendencies  be  fixed  in  plant,  ani- 
mal, or  man,  until,  if  repeated  often 
enough  in  any  certain  direction,  the 
habits  become  so  fixed  and  inherent  in 
heredity  that  it  will  require  many  repe- 
titions of  an  opposite  nature  to  efface 
them. 


ENVIRONMENT 
APPLICATION  TO  CHILD  LIFE 

WHAT  possibilities  this  view  opens  up 
in  the  culture  and  development  of  the 
most  sensitive  and  most  precious  of  all 
lives  which  ever  come  under  our  care 
and  culture — child  life! 

Can  we  hope  for  normal,  healthy, 
happy  children  if  they  are  constantly  in 
ugly  environment?  Are  we  not  rea- 
sonably sure  that  these  conditions  will 
almost  swamp  a  well-balanced  normal 
heredity  and  utterly  overthrow  and  de- 
stroy a  weak  though  otherwise  good 
one? 

We  are  learning  that  child  life  is  far 
more  sensitive  to  impressions  of  any 
kind  than  we  had  ever  before  realized, 
and  it  is  certain  that  this  wonderful  sen- 
sitiveness and  ready  adaptability  has 

7  85 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

not  as  yet  by  any  means  been  put  to  its 
best  possible  use  in  child  culture — either 
in  the  home  or  the  school — and  though 
all  must  admire  our  great  educational 
system,  yet  no  well-informed  person 
need  be  told  that  it  is  not  perfect. 


86 


X 

CHARACTER 

IT  ir  TE  are  a  garrulous  people  and  too 
V  V  often  forget,  or  do  not  know, 
that  the  heart  as  well  as  the  head  should 
receive  its  full  share  of  culture.  Much 
of  our  education  has  been  that  of  the 
parrot;  children's  minds  are  too  often 
crowded  with  rules  and  words.  Edu- 
cation of  the  intellect  has  its  place,  but 
is  injurious,  unnatural,  and  unbalanced 
unless  in  addition  to  cultivating  the 
memory  and  reason  we  educate  the 
heart  also  in  the  truest  sense.  A  well- 
balanced  character  should  always  be 
the  object  and  aim  of  all  education. 
87 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

A  perfect  system  of  education  can 
never  be  attained  because  education 
is  preparing  one  for  the  environment 
expected,  and  conditions  change  with 
time  and  place.  There  is  too  much 
striving  to  be  consistent  rather  than 
trying  to  be  right.  We  must  learn 
that  what  we  call  character  is  heredity 
and  environment  in  combination,  and 
heredity  being  only  stored  environment 
our  duty  and  our  privilege  is  to  make 
the  stored  environment  of  the  best 
quality ;  in  this  way  character  is  not  only 
improved  in  the  individual  but  the  de- 
sired qualities  are  added  to  heredity  to 
have  their  influence  in  guiding  the 
slightly  but  surely  changed  heredities  of 
succeeding  generations. 


CHARACTER 


SUCCESS 

COLD  mathematical  intellect  unaccom- 
panied by  a  heart  for  the  philosophic, 
idealistic,  and  poetic  side  of  nature 
is  like  a  locomotive  well  made  but  of 
no  practical  value  without  fire  and 
steam;  a  good  knowledge  of  language, 
history,  geography,  mathematics,  chem- 
istry, botany,  astronomy,  geology,  etc., 
is  of  some  importance,  but  far  more  so 
is  the  knowledge  that  all  true  success  in 
life  depends  on  integrity;  that  health, 
peace,  happiness,  and  content,  all  come 
with  heartily  accepting  and  daily  living 
by  the  "Golden  Rule";  that  dollars, 
though  of  great  importance  and  value, 
do  not  necessarily  make  one  wealthy; 
that  a  loving  devotion  to  truth  is  a  nor- 
89 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

mal  indication  of  physical  and  mental 
health;  that  hypocrisy  and  deceit  are 
only  forms  of  debility,  mental  imbecil- 
ity and  bodily  disease,  and  that  the 
knowledge  and  ability  to  perform  use- 
ful, honest  labor  of  any  kind  is  of  infin- 
itely more  importance  and  value  than 
all  the  so-called  "culture"  of  the  schools, 
which  too  often  turn  out  nervous  pedan- 
tic victims  of  unbalanced  education  with 
plenty  of  words  but  with  no  intuitive 
ability  to  grasp,  digest,  assimilate  and 
make  use  of  the  environment  which  they 
are  compelled  each  day  to  meet  and  to 
conquer  or  be  conquered. 

Any  form  of  education  which  leaves 
one  less  able  to  meet  every-day  emer- 
gencies and  occurrences  is  unbalanced 
and  vicious,  and  will  lead  any  people 
to  destruction. 

90 


CHARACTER 

Every  child  should  have  mud  pies, 
grasshoppers,  water-bugs,  tadpoles, 
frogs,  mud-turtles,  elderberries,  wild 
strawberries,  acorns,  chestnuts,  trees  to 
climb,  brooks  to  wade  in,  water-lilies, 
woodchucks,  bats,  bees,  butterflies,  var- 
ious animals  to  pet,  hay-fields,  pine- 
cones,  rocks  to  roll,  sand,  snakes, 
huckleberries  and  hornets;  and  any 
child  who  has  been  deprived  of  these  has 
been  deprived  of  the  best  part  of  his  ed- 
ucation. 

By  being  well  acquainted  with  all 
these  they  come  into  most  intimate  har- 
mony with  nature,  whose  lessons  are,  of 
course,  natural  and  wholesome. 

A    fragrant    beehive    or    a    plump, 

healthy  hornet's  nest  in  good  running 

order  often  become  object  lessons  of 

some  importance.     The  inhabitants  can 

91 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

give  the  child  pointed  lessons  in  punc- 
tuation as  well  as  caution  and  some  of 
the  limitations  as  well  as  the  grand  pos- 
sibilities of  life ;  and  by  even  a  brief  ex- 
perience with  a  good  patch  of  healthy 
nettles,  the  same  lesson  will  be  still  fur- 
ther impressed  upon  them.  And  thus 
by  each  new  experience  with  homely 
natural  objects  the  child  learns  self-re- 
spect and  also  to  respect  the  objects  and 
forces  which  must  be  met. 


XI 

FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES 

<TT"NOWLEDGE  is  Power,"  but  it  re- 
XV  quires  to  be  combined  with  wis- 
dom to  become  useful.  The  funda- 
mental principles  of  education  should 
be  the  subject  of  earnest  scientific  inves- 
tigation, but  this  investigation  should 
be  broad,  including  not  only  the  theat- 
rical, wordy,  memorizing,  compiling 
methods,  but  should  also  include  all  the 
causes  which  tend  to  produce  men  and 
women  with  sane  well-balanced  char- 
acters. 

We  must  learn  that  any  person  who 
will  not  accept  what  he  knows  to  be 
93 


truth,  for  the  very  love  of  truth  alone, 
is  very  definitely  undermining  his  men- 
tal integrity.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  mind  of  such  a  person  gradually 
stops  growing,  for,  being  constantly 
hedged  in  and  cropped  here  and  there, 
it  soon  learns  to  respect  artificial  fences 
more  than  freedom  for  growth.  You 
have  not  been  a  very  close  observer  of 
such  men  if  you  have  not  seen  them 
shrivel,  become  commonplace,  mean, 
without  influence,  without  friends  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  youth  and  growth, 
like  a  tree  covered  with  fungus,  the  fo- 
liage diseased,  and  the  life  gone  out  of 
the  heart  with  dry  rot  and  indelibly 
marked  for  destruction — dead,  but  not 
yet  handed  over  to  the  undertaker. 

The  man  or  the  woman  who  moves  the 
earth,  who  is  master  rather  than  the 
94 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES 

victim  of  fate,  has  strong  feelings  well 
in  hand — a  vigilant  engineer  at  the 
throttle. 

Education  which  makes  us  lazier  and 
more  helpless  is  of  no  use.  Leaders  use 
the  power  within ;  it  should  give  the  best 
organized  thought  and  experience  of 
men  through  all  the  ages  of  the  past. 
By  it  we  should  learn  that  it  is  not  nec- 
essary to  be  selfish  in  order  to  succeed. 
If  you  happen  to  get  a  new  idea  don't 
build  a  barbed  wire  fence  around  it  and 
label  it  yours.  By  giving  your  best 
thoughts  freely  others  will  come  to  you 
so  freely  that  you  will  soon  never  think 
of  fencing  them  in.  Thoughts  refuse  to 
climb  barbed  wire  fences  to  reach  any- 
body. 

By  placing  ourselves  in  harmony  and 
cooperation  with  the  main  high  poten- 
95 


TRAINING  OF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

tial  line  of  human  progress  and  welfare 
we  receive  the  benefit  of  strong  mag- 
netic induction  currents.  But  by  plac- 
ing our  life  energies  at  right  angles  to 
it  we  soon  find  ourselves  on  a  low-feed 
induction  current,  thus  losing  the  help 
and  support  which  should  be  ours. 

Straightforward  honesty  always  pays 
better  dividends  than  zigzag  policy. 
It  gives  one  individuality,  self-respect, 
and  power  to  take  the  initiative,  sav- 
ing all  the  trouble  of  constant  tacking 
to  catch  the  popular  breeze.  Each  hu- 
man being  is  like  a  steamship,  endowed 
with  a  tremendous  power.  The  fires  of 
life  develop  a  pressure  of  steam  which, 
well  disciplined,  leads  to  happiness  for 
ourselves  and  others;  or  it  may  lead 
only  to  pain  and  destruction. 

To  guide  these  energies  is  the  work 
96 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES 

of  true  education.  Education  of  rules 
and  words  only  for  polish  and  public 
opinion  is  of  the  past.  The  education 
of  the  present  and  future  is  to  guide 
these  energies  through  wind  and  wave 
straight  to  the  port  desired.  Educa- 
tion gives  no  one  any  new  force.  It 
can  only  discipline  nature's  energies  to 
develop  in  natural  and  useful  directions 
so  that  the  voyage  of  life  may  be  a  use- 
ful and  happy  one — so  that  life  may  not 
be  blasted  or  completely  cut  off  before 
thought  and  experience  have  ripened 
into  useful  fruit. 

When  the  love  of  truth  for  truth's 
sake — this  poetic  idealism,  this  intui- 
tive perception,  this  growth  from 
within — has  been  awakened  and  culti- 
vated, thoughts  live  and  are  transmitted 
into  endless  forms  of  beauty  and  utility; 
97 


TRAINING  PF  THE  HUMAN  PLANT 

but  to  receive  this  new  growth  we  must 
cultivate  a  sturdy  self-respect,  we  must 
break  away  from  the  mere  petrified 
word-pictures  of  others  and  cultivate 
the  "still  small  voice"  within  by  which 
we  become  strong  in  individual  thought 
and  quick  in  action,  not  cropped, 
hedged  and  distorted  by  outward,  triv- 
ial forms,  fads  and  fancies.  Every 
great  man  or  woman  is  at  heart  a  poet, 
and  all  must  listen  long  to  the  harmonies 
of  Nature  before  they  can  make  transla- 
tions from  her  infinite  resources  through 
their  own  ideals  into  creations  of  beauty 
in  words,  forms,  colors,  or  sounds. 
Mathematical  details  are  invaluable,  the 
compilation  method  is  beyond  re- 
proach; intellectually  we  may  know 
many  things,  but  they  will  never  be  of 
any  great  value  toward  a  normal 
98 


FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLES 

growth  unless  there  is  an  inward  awak- 
ening, an  intuitive  grasp,  an  impelling 
personal  force  which  digests,  assimilates 
and  individualizes.  This  intuitive  con- 
sciousness, combined  with  extensive 
practical  knowledge  and  "horse  sense," 
has  always  been  the  motive  power  of  all 
those  who  have  for  all  time  left  the  hu- 
man race  rich  with  legacies  of  useful 
thought,  with  ripening  harvests  of  free- 
dom and  with  ever-increasing  stores  of 
wisdom  and  happiness.  We  are  now 
standing  upon  the  threshold  of  new 
methods  and  new  discoveries  which  shall 
give  us  imperial  dominion. 


99 


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